Jay Hasbrouck

Jay Hasbrouck is an anthropologist and strategist whose insights drive innovation and strategic direction for companies, non-profits, and government agencies. He helps clients build on the cultural meanings and contexts of their offerings to refocus their strategies and optimize for cultural alignment.

Jay Hasbrouck is an anthropologist and strategist whose insights drive innovation and strategic direction for companies, non-profits, and government agencies. He helps clients build on the cultural meanings and contexts of their offerings to refocus their strategies and optimize for cultural alignment.

The principal of Hasbrouck Research Group, he has designed and managed large-scale projects across the world, including HCD projects in China, Russia, France, Malaysia, Germany, Mexico, and other countries. Before establishing his consultancy, Jay held positions at IDEO, Intel, and USC’s Center for Sustainable Cities. He has a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Southern California.

His latest work, Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset frames innovation as a practice fundamentally rooted in understanding cultures. From customers to stakeholders, to analogous groups, and the internal culture of a company or organization, he argues that getting from field to insights to prototype to marketplace requires the ability to understand each of these cultures and how they interact. To accomplish this, he demonstrates how ethnographic thinking—the thought processes and patterns ethnographers develop through their practice—produces insights that go beyond identifying customer needs to give organizations the unique strategic advantage of innovating in cultural terms.

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